Longtime fraud risk expert Linda Miller was cautiously optimistic in an interview that aired Sunday about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though she emphasized that the need to stop government fraud is not political.
“I really think fraud is not a political issue. This is mom and apple pie stuff,” Miller told “60 Minutes.” “We all agree that bad actors should not be stealing American taxpayer dollars. But now, it’s become political. People like me, and people in the law enforcement community, we see the adversary, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as foreign adversarial nation-states and organized crime rings.”
She added, “And I believe that there’s opportunities for DOGE to save a lot of significant money, if they focus on the right things, if they focus on real fraud.”
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Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency aim to cut government spending and fraud. (Getty Images)
However, Miller clarified that DOGE and DOGE founder Elon Musk tended to equate “fraud” with “wasteful spending,” which she pointed out were two separate issues.
“You may not agree with what USAID does, you may not want to be investing American dollars in, you know, foreign fertilizer, for example — you may think that’s the wrong thing to be spending money on, but that’s not fraud,” Miller said.
During the “60 Minutes” segment, correspondent Cecilia Vega spoke to experts like Miller, who argued that hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud were caused not solely by people falsely taking disability benefits, but also by international crime rings from hostile nations like Russia or China, through such actions as stealing government funds from disaster assistance.
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Linda Miller warned “60 Minutes” that government fraud was approaching $1 trillion. (Getty Images)
Though she said the “jury’s still out” on whether DOGE has been effective in combating fraud, Miller said she saw signs that it was addressing the right issues.
“To be honest, Elon Musk coming out and saying, ‘There is a huge amount of fraud,’ I welcome that message completely because, finally, someone is actually saying this,” Miller said.
Last month, Musk and DOGE volunteer Antonio Gracias identified more than 2 million noncitizens who were issued Social Security numbers in FY2024. So far, they have found that approximately 1 million noncitizens were issued Social Security numbers in FY2025, which began in October and will end in September.
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